Flashpoints | Security | South Asia

Indian, Pakistani Naval Vessels Collide in Arabian Sea, Prompting Diplomatic Tensions

This is the first time since the May 2025 military clashes that tension between the two sides has erupted into the open.

On September 15, PNS Hunain, a Pakistan Navy corvette, collided with an Indian Navy warship, INS Kolkata, in the north Arabian Sea, 220 kilometers east of Oman. The following day, India’s Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) summoned Pakistan’s top-most diplomat in New Delhi, Chargé d’Affaires Saad Ahmad Warraich, to the foreign ministry to protest the “unacceptable and unprofessional conduct” of ​Pakistani naval units.

“While the incident, which took place in international waters, did not cause any major damage, the conduct of the Pakistani naval ship was in direct contravention of Article 10 of the Agreement between India and Pakistan on Advance Notice on Military Exercises, Manoeuvres and Troops Movements of April 1991,” the MEA said in a statement.

Article 10 of the 1991 Agreement, which Pakistan reportedly flouted, states that naval ships and submarines belonging to the two countries should not come within three nautical miles of each other while operating in international waters. The agreement was signed as a confidence-building measure to put in place mechanisms for India and Pakistan to inform each other about military exercises or troop movements to prevent a crisis from arising due to the misreading of the other side’s intentions. It came following heightened tension when India conducted Brass Tacks, a massive military exercise in the states of Punjab and Rajasthan along the India-Pakistan border, in January 1987.

Meanwhile, across the border in Pakistan, the response mirrored that of India, with Islamabad blaming India for the incident. “While the Pakistan Navy was undertaking its biennial exercise, SEASPARK-26, the Indian vessel carried out aggressive maneuvers in dangerously close proximity to a Pakistani naval ship, resulting in contact between the two vessels, ” the Pakistan Foreign Office said in a statement.

While the MEA described the incident as a collision, unnamed officials “aware of........

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